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On the occasion of the anniversary held at Boston, Massachusetts 2006 Federation of Genealogical Societies. This is posted with permission of Linda Haas Davenport. This article was originally printed in Evertons Publishers' Genealogical Helper. | On the occasion of the anniversary held at Boston, Massachusetts 2006 Federation of Genealogical Societies. This is posted with permission of Linda Haas Davenport. This article was originally printed in Evertons Publishers' Genealogical Helper. | ||
10th Anniversary<br>USGenWeb Project™<br>Land of the Free ... Genealogy | :10th Anniversary<br>USGenWeb Project™<br>Land of the Free ... Genealogy | ||
Linda Haas Davenport<br>Past National Coordinator USGenWeb Project | :Linda Haas Davenport<br>Past National Coordinator USGenWeb Project | ||
At a recent genealogy convention hundreds of attendees stopped by the USGenWeb Project's booth. For four days the volunteers manning the booth heard stories about how one of the Project's websites or county coordinators had been instrumental in helping to knock down a brick wall or how a long sought piece of information had been found on one of the Project's websites. Visitor after visitor not only said, "Thank you for what you do," most also said, "Thank you for keeping your information free." | |||
<br>As the National Coordinator of the USGenWeb Project™ I attended this conference and at a reception a gentleman at the table said, "I've been curious for a long time now - how has the Project avoided a take-over?" From across the table a lady remarked, "Or being bought out by Ancestry." The conversation quickly turned to a question that seemed to be uppermost in everyone's minds: How can the Project, in this day and age when most genealogy sites charge a fee to access their information, afford to offer its wealth of information for free? | <br>As the National Coordinator of the USGenWeb Project™ I attended this conference and at a reception a gentleman at the table said, "I've been curious for a long time now - how has the Project avoided a take-over?" From across the table a lady remarked, "Or being bought out by Ancestry." The conversation quickly turned to a question that seemed to be uppermost in everyone's minds: How can the Project, in this day and age when most genealogy sites charge a fee to access their information, afford to offer its wealth of information for free? | ||
<br>The next day I stopped by the Everton booth to say Hi to Leland Meitzler and he said, "Linda! Just the person I want to see. I'm always being asked if RootsWeb owns the Project or the Project owns RootsWeb. Clear that up for me, will you?" The upshot of this conversation was the decision for me to write an article (for Genealogical Helper) on the history of the USGenWeb Project to celebrate its10th anniversary and along the way to hopefully clear up some confusion and answer the question - "how can they do it for free?" | <br>The next day I stopped by the Everton booth to say Hi to Leland Meitzler and he said, "Linda! Just the person I want to see. I'm always being asked if RootsWeb owns the Project or the Project owns RootsWeb. Clear that up for me, will you?" The upshot of this conversation was the decision for me to write an article (for Genealogical Helper) on the history of the USGenWeb Project to celebrate its10th anniversary and along the way to hopefully clear up some confusion and answer the question - "how can they do it for free?" | ||